Refraction
by Razer Athane
Summary: But like all songs, all fairytales must end. But unlike songs, they are almost always happy. -Oneshot-


Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Author's Note: The feels from the new ep made me do this.

* * *

**REFRACTION**

* * *

_You were the first._

* * *

The TARDIS. Just the TARDIS, and nobody else.

There is no one in the TARDIS except for his new self. There's not even a memory of what's been happening just before he stepped inside his beloved ship. He remembers thinking about using the Moment, but he cannot remember if he actually does it.

The Doctor does go back to Kasterborous, not even sparing a glance in the mirror to analyse his new features as he looks outside the two doors. He scours it for Gallifrey... but he never finds it. Not in its usual coordinates nor anywhere within the constellation. The thought is overwhelmingly depressing and the way it weighs down his hearts is almost sickening, though they do not break.

But this is who he is now. The Oncoming Storm. The man who killed them all, and he must live with it.

So what else is he to do now but to help, rather than hurt like he just had? Earth is always familiar, so he goes back and looks around. They are small alien things at first, little things that are easily snuffed out by taking them back to their home world. And then there's the autons.

And then there's Rose. Intuitive, resourceful, and bold. She's there as he talks to the Nestene Consciousness. She stays with him through the end of the world, the Jagrafess and all that Satellite Five has to offer. She picks up strays from time to time. Jack is at least _truly_ intelligent_,_ unlike Adam before him who understood nothing of consequence.

She's there when the daleks reappear. When bile is ready to spill from his mouth, and when the rage rips through his system. The fury of a war-born Time Lord.

But she's remarkable, his Rose. Bright and beautiful. Golden.

And like a good doctor should, he saves her. But it destroys him. He's frightened by the process – he always is, it's like a lottery. Who knows what will come out the other side?

But he is not alone. That's the most important thing.

The Doctor regenerates - he refracts. All his bitterness is too sour, and the strength of it leaves, diverting into another road and away from the initial path. Someone else takes his place, in his TARDIS, with her.

He just hopes it is someone better.

* * *

_The first face this face saw._

* * *

His Rose.

It looks like she's wilting in that corner, disheartened at the change that's only been natural. But of course she wouldn't understand – well, not yet, and he hadn't been in a position to explain it properly anyhow.

What the Doctor couldn't take was how _afraid of him_ she looked.

And she blabbers about fighting aliens. The slitheens. And he just smiles through it all, watching his Rose. The fear's been replaced by anger, but if he looks closer, he can still see it. And that's okay. It's just different to what he knows of her, to that boldness.

She soon grows to trust him again, to love him more, and to remember him for who he was and who he had become. A man born from her love, and forever changed by the wars of before. But he is not the same man, and he has her to thank for that. The first face – the only face he wanted to see when he became the tenth man in a long line.

But the Doctor knows better than anybody how unfair the universe is.

In the end, his hearts shatter as though they're made of glass.

He tries to carry on from that unfair separation, despite the ache and the way that _anger_ almost bursts his veins. Donna and the Empress of the Racnoss. Martha, the wonderful, intelligent and _brave _woman who walked the Earth. And Donna somehow finds him again, and they go through so much.

Despite his attempts, he could never get past Rose. There is something much too strong that happens between the Time Lord and his companions who see him regenerate. Donna, Martha, Jack, Wilfred, none of them looked at him the same. They love him, he knows. He might not believe it, but he knows – even if he'd only met River the one time, he can see it in her eyes. But they just do not _know_ or _understand _him. No companion like them ever could.

There are many before Rose – Sarah Jane is one that strongly comes to mind – but they had never looked at him as though they were afraid for their _own _life, only his. In that, she is the first. It's something that never leaves his mind, even when he sees Rose again, running towards him in her purple jacket.

Even as he watches his human duplicate and his Rose fade away into nothingness in the parallel universe.

And then the universe hits him again, taking away his best friend forever.

Maybe the Doctor was always better off alone, only touching the lives of others instead of moulding them and _manipulating _them. Where he could only help instead of hurt, like that pledge he had made to himself when he began. Never cruel nor cowardly. Never giving up or giving in. Helping no matter the cost, pushing through no matter the song.

In the end it takes his life.

Alone. In the TARDIS. Hurting her, burning her. His anger, his rage, his grief. Unparalleled.

He refracts, shooting off into something else. A change of direction - his last thoughts of Rose filter away into a new, chattering mind, full of new possibilities.

A new man crashes to the Earth.

* * *

_And you were seared..._

* * *

A small child.

The first thing the Doctor notes is that she shows no fear. She is curious instead, her bright eyes monitoring his every movement. She even lets him stumble into her big, lonely house. He supposes that's a first too. So many firsts.

His body hurts, and every movement feels off. The eleventh step in a long walk.

The little Scottish girl gives him her name. Amelia Pond. Like a fairytale.

He promises to show her the stars, even though he comes back several years too late, trying to put pieces together about an escaped prisoner and a relationship that seems one-sided from time to time – but it's not his business and he's probably wrong. He's not very good at reading those sorts of things.

His Amelia.

In the TARDIS, going through time and space. Her husband-to-be eventually comes along, and they lose him, more than once in the end. They bounce between kind monsters and ruthless psychopaths; the greatest painter who ever lived and the church who sought to stop a catastrophe by ending him earlier than expected; a child to a wife. The TARDIS is given a voice, only to lose it. Memories of those from before. River, now breathing and not in the library.

The Doctor feels alive, with the Ponds and his bowtie. Even when Amy is taken from him, he still feels alive because of the _fight_ that thrums through his system to save her. But just like with Rose, the universe decides to throw him a curveball by pulling out the very thing that's been holding him up.

The touch of an angel.

He thought the cracks had healed, but they hadn't. His hearts shatter again into even smaller pieces than before.

Perhaps he doesn't deserve friends given everything he's done – certainly not those friends down there who oppose his solitude, nor anyone else that could stumble into his life. A mate to go through the galaxies, isn't that what he once told another fiery redhead? His throat constricts at the memory of Donna. Rose. And then of everyone else, but especially his Amelia.

If the universe continues to hurt him despite all he's done, then why bother _trying_ anymore?

But then there's a new challenge presented to him. A clever girl who keeps appearing and dying – he'll not let another beautiful soul _die_ because of his indifference, his cruelty or his passion. So when the Doctor finds Clara Oswin Oswald, he says to himself that he will never let her go.

And just like before, he lives. He shows her the world and many others, just like everyone before him. Just like the lives he's touched... even the ones he manipulated and ruined. He'll still always treasure the wonder on their face. From the Rings of Akhaten to Victorian London, and beyond. Always beyond.

In the end, he learns to let go of what he did on Gallifrey, only to find that he had saved it.

The eyes of his direct predecessor haunt him more than he expected. Possibly because he forgot he could feel such pain, after being so happy for so long. After not losing as much as he once had... and the faces and ages before that too.

They haunt him because although they are the same, they are so different.

They bring him to Trenzalore. He counts on his fingers how many times he's regenerated already – the man from the war and the resulting human self are counted. So he ages. The last and oldest.

Just like Rose before her, he sends Clara home – _twice._ Because he couldn't bear to watch her wither or walk away like she had. And just like Rose before her, she comes back, and he is given the gift of new regenerations from the Time Lords _he had saved._

Well then, it's been quite a long time since he's been at this crux again. Too happy to travel along this line of light. But like all songs, all fairytales must end. But unlike songs, they are almost always happy.

He sees her again, as he dies. His Amelia.

And within an instant, he refracts. His light diverts to a new path. A new man stands in his place.

* * *

_...onto my hearts._

* * *

His Impossible Girl.

The first thing he sees in Clara's eyes is despair. Despair that he had to change – yet unlike many others before her, she at least had an understanding of what happened and why. Because this is who he is, the Doctor. This is how he survives. It's in his biology. And despair that who he'd been has to go.

He's been blessed with a second chance. A second set of lives, and the ability to do better, and help more people. He doesn't know where he will start, but he knows that Gallifrey is on the list.

The Doctor doesn't know what is ahead. He doesn't know what's to come. He doesn't know who Clara will grow to be, nor what he will become in his new body. The twelfth in this long line. He doesn't know anything, only that they are crashing, and there is a slight sense of déjà vu somewhere in the back of his mind.

He's done terrible things, and impossible things. He's crossed into parallel universes and into his own timeline. He's turned people into weapons and manipulated them into taking their own lives. He's had people's named carved into his hearts and he's had to watch as they burned away.

Too much grief, and too much joy. Who knows what he will become now, or what he will do?

In the end, when she takes his hand, he realises it doesn't matter. Her face fills his vision, and imprints onto him just as Amelia and Rose and all of those before her who had been there when he changed.

They never leave, he realises. Not really. He will always remember. They will always be special.

He just knows that Clara will be there. And that's enough.


End file.
